My ebook: Journeys with the caterpillar

My ebook"Journeys with the caterpillar: Travelling through the islands of Floresand Sumba, Indonesia" is available at this link

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Phone cards, money transfer, foreign exchange and poor immigrants

In a world where there are supposedly so many differences of opinion, almost everyone agrees to one thing: that immigrants, only of the poorer variety who are typically laborers or their family members are harmful to society at large. All sorts of economic and social ills are blamed on them. They are known to be dirty, to be lacking in social manners, to be carrying diseases. Poor immigrants are claimed to be ones who eat disgusting food, quarrel loudly among themselves, and breed like mosquitoes. They are also known to be the first ones to invent crime in a land mythologized by locals as being hitherto land of peace before the coming of these poor immigrants.

The richer immigrants, who come as businessman or professionals, look upon their poorer compatriots as an anomaly, a shame to their country’s reputation, and a group people, who together with their habits are to be avoided to prevent getting grouped in the same bucket. In social gatherings, these richer immigrants typically are the ones who make the most fun of their poorer compatriots and their praxis. This helps them to prove that they have marched so far ahead, that they are beyond petty nationalism, that they can be accepted by the local society without any inhibitions.

Anywhere in the world, governments set up tough rules for them while police don’t think twice before acting tough on them as majority opinion in any country agrees on harassing the poor immigrants. Trade talks between the global powers ignore them as being an exception to the spirit of laissez faire that they pay constantly pay lip service to. In other talks between the global powers, strategies are discussed to track and repel poor immigrants.

In such a world where it is natural and morally correct to hate immigrants of the poorer variety, only the sellers of phone cards, money transfer services and foreign exchange services treat this people as humans, giving them the respect due to each human in the form of promotions and advertisements targeted at them.